This year has been our FRC Rookie year, and seeing as how helpful and committed the community here was about helping my team with its re-organization for next year, I thought I'd ask another important question as well, hopefully to achieve the same results.

Having won the Rookie All-Star award at the regionals, we think that in order to make a good impression and prove everyone that we're a serious team, we should aim for Chariman's this year.

A good first step in doing that, we thought, would be to introduce FIRST's FLL to our younger students, and thus contribute to the involvement of our school in Robotics even further.

Now, I'd like to know, if we actually do go for it... what kind of involvement would be required from us, other than just being the mediator. It's pretty obvious that we'll be helping them out with management and all the technical issues, but is there anything else other than that?

Also, how does FIRST knows that we were the ones who helped create a new FLL team (i.e how does it count towards our chances of winning Chariman's)?

If you happen to not understand something, please say so and I'll explain it further.

There are many ways to help promote FLL....the simplest way to start is to approach the middle (or elementary) school that feeds your high school and discuss the program with the principal. Offer to help mentor the team....this is where your future FRC team members will come from! Another way is to simply tap younger siblings of your FRC teammates to form a team. Have a parent host the team while your FRC team provides guidance.

For ideas about how this can contribute to the Chairman's Award....see the Tick's webpage here http://sites.team236.org/2009/chairman-s-award As Judge Advisor, I want all the teams in Israel to work towards this goal. It took the Ticks 11 years.......so hang in there!

If you want a very easy, inexpensive "way in" take a good look at Jr. FLL for 6-9 year olds. Very inexpensive and easy to do. We ran two Jr. FLL Expos this past year at nearly no expense, one of them entirely coordinated by one of our seniors. Here are the details: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2264

Each FLL coach also receives a Coach's Manual. It outlines the goals and usual structure of an FLL team from team size to involvement of the adult or student mentors. One thing the students sometimes need help with is presentation skills and research skills for their research project. As you may know, the research presentation is a big part of FLL competitions as its the first introduction kids have to being aware of their future's problems and also how they can solve them.

If you want to get into further discussion just IM me at lilstogi or drop me an email at lilstogi@gmail

Basically what Jon and Rich said are spot on. JFLL and FLL at the same time are also things you can do. Some consider successful JFLL programs to be even more impressive. Imagine having both!

Also if you need chairmans help or advice feel free to contact me. I've gathered a lot of Chairmans resources over the years from various teams and websites that I can share.

FLL is a great way to get kids involved with FIRST, most of our team has come from an FLL background as did I. Our team originated from the FLL team Mindstorms Mayhem and had a second team More Mayhem. Many of our members mentor FLL and volunteer at the New Hampshire State Competition.

FLL is a great way to get kids involved with FIRST, most of our team has come from an FLL background as did I. Our team originated from the FLL team Mindstorms Mayhem and had a second team More Mayhem. Many of our members mentor FLL and volunteer at the New Hampshire State Competition.

I agree with Brendan, FLL really helped prepare me for FLL. In order for it to count for you chairmen's just tell the judges you mentored the teams. Some pix or quotes would really hit the nail on the head as well!

If this is for students in middle/elementary school, then I would recommend FLL but if this is for your younger students, like freshmen, I would recommend FTC.

As for supporting an FLL team, generally anything can in the realm of support. Programming help, building help, presentation help, fundraising help, competition help, and much much more can all be very benefitial to a FLL team.

FLL has brought me right up through the ranks of FIRST, all the way to FRC.

We here at 1503 have been working on our outreach programs, and the centerfold of them is having FLL at our feeder schools. I've written letters to the Ministry of Education for years, along with our schoolboard, to get Lego kits at all of our elementary schools under their jurisdiction. Persistence pays off, our schoolboard has donated Lego NXT Mindstorms kits to every elementary school in their area. Other boards are looking to do the same.

Anyways, we hook schools by explaining the values of FIRST, what FLL is all about, and several demonstrations of FIRST on all competition levels. Presentations are obviously geared more towards grade 6-8s, so nothing too technical. But kids are attracted to big, shiny robots that do cool things.

Make sure you demonstrate a FLL robot or two, as the kids would like to know what they're getting into. Sure they might see this big FRC robot, but really the focus should be on FLL. We show FRC as "this is what FLL leads to, especially if you go to our school." So it's a win win for our school, and our team.

When their season rolls around, make sure you have a couple FRC students on hand who are experienced with FLL to teach them things like how to program their robot, how to build simple mechanisms, etc. I will be mentoring 4 teams this year, because I'm the only one on my team who has gone through the continuum. Mind you, there will be other teammates at the schools I'll be helping too. Winging it alone is generally a bad thing.